


When we were young

by AraEtoile18



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Established Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa, Everything is secretive, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jealous Kang Yeosang, Love, Lust, M/M, Murder Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, Sad and Happy, Soulmates, might get a bit dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29133948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraEtoile18/pseuds/AraEtoile18
Summary: Yeosang and Wooyoung were lovers, until San came into the picture.But on returning to his childhood home, 10 years later, he finds it inhabited by a mysterious couple who tells him the most tragic news. While working his way through grief he must also discover how this death came about and uncovers an unsettling truth that changes his life."Autumn killed summer with the softest kiss"
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Rainy Day

I remember one June afternoon after work I sat outside on the kerb, my white leather bag with my arms laced though the straps sitting on my lap, and I waited for him. He drove along next to the kerb on his bike and pulled in close to me and smiled brightly as I stood to walk over to him, probably mirroring the same grin he wore. He handed me the dusty blue helmet and I jumped on, swinging my bag onto my back and creeping my arms around his middle. I could lightly feel his spine pressing up against my chest and my thighs sat hugging his, skin on skin. 

“Ready?” he said. “Yes!”

Sometimes we would stop half way up the road and sit, looking out over the hills, sometimes he would have packed food and we would lay and eat and drink, sometimes he would take me to his house, drag me up his stairs and press me up against the door of his room before he began devouring my neck and tracing his tanned hands up under my shirt across my stomach. 

Today, as we rode along this road I had come to know all too well, he hummed, and I could just faintly hear it above the roar of the engine. We arrived, he got a blanket and I helped him place it down on the grass, then he got a book, one he had spoken of before, to me, when we were in my apartment and one of my songs reminded him of it. He lay down next to me on his belly, his elbows holding himself up so he could turn the pages of the book. And he began to read it, in Korean, as he knew if it were English, although I would love to listen to him speaking it off the page, I would understand very, very little. I turned onto my side to watch him, his deep, dark eyes scanning the page, some loose stands of black hair falling freely over his face.

And I couldn't get why, but it enticed me, pulled me into a trance, the way, when he read a book, his thumb would lightly caress the bottom of the page, back and fourth and back and fourth. I could faintly make out the sound of it, his rough thumb teasing the edge of the book, creating a soft scrapping that was so repetitive it could cause me to fall asleep.

And he would do it, on each and every page he turned, his thumb giving each one as much love as the last. I wanted him to do this with me, I could picture his hand in mine, caressing the back of my hand, where the skin is so smooth and the sound would be much softer. 

He read with such passion ,the story coming to life before my eyes ,behind my eyelids as I began to close them over, tiredness taking over my body. I fell asleep to his voice that day, to the sounds of the birds echoing there songs, muffling into the story, blending his voice and the air, until reality and fantasy began one world where he and I could live for a while. 

When I woke from the dream I was on a small, firm sofa in a living room. I opened my eyes to see a young girl peering round the corner of a door with her fingers in her mouth, a raggedy bunny rabbit hanging from her fingers, a small smile creeping across her face when she saw me waken and she scattered back further behind the door. 

The living room was old, a large light hung from the ceiling, which gave the room a warm yellow glow, like the colour of the leaves in fall. The mantle piece was of white marble stone and looked as though it could be cooling to walk across. I sat myself up and began to walk over to the one picture that sat proudly in the centre next to a chesnut, wooden clock. It was of him, Wooyoung. I then remembered falling asleep next to him in the warmth of the midday sun, however now it was dark and a flash came suddenly, of bright, white light and I turned in time to hear the thunder which followed it.  
It must have started to rain. 

The windows were full length from the floor, almost up to the ceiling, one looked as though it would open out and be a door to the outside, to the garden patio where the tables and chairs sat, where we sometimes ate lunch on a Sunday. I had never been inside, only out, only in his garden and his room even though we had known each other for years. The living room always seemed to be occupied, or maybe it was set apart for special occasions.  
I sat at lunch one bright Sunday afternoon with his bare knee resting against mine, listening to the glorious roar of voices from the ten others squeezed around the table, I strained my eyes to look inside and could faintly make out a large palm plant, a low, caramel coffee table and an antique armchair, whose wine fabric looked worn and wood looked scrapped, as though done purposely, with a key.

Yes, that's where I was now. I was on the opposite side, peering out through the same double shuttered windows at the strongest rain I had seen in a long while. It sounded like tiny bullets hitting the glass panes, the sky was a deep smoky grey and the chairs were turned lying inwards on the table, one or two overturned, probably by the wind. The rain made it hard to see, like a painting that had been smeared so that only if you stepped back you would make out what it was supposed to be, the colours of red, ivy and grey smoothed into lines that ran down the windows. 

I traced the drips with my fingers as they fell down on the other side of the window, waiting for someone to come and find me yet content with not being found just yet. “Ah your awake” he frightened me, yanking me out of my daydreaming, I almost forgot it could be him that would find me. I turned to see him leaning against the doorframe with a warm smirk touching his lips, “you fell asleep as I was reading and it began to rain, I had to carry you inside!”. He was walking over to me now, laughing as he finished the sentence, wrapping his arms around my waist, squeezing me against his chest, my arms trapped between us. “I’m sorry, baby” our noses touched, I grinned up at him, 'was I heavy?'. 

He shook his head and slowly began to run his hands through my hair, I felt safe wrapped in him, like a child that fit perfectly in his mothers arms, yes, I felt like a child again, like his baby who he would undeniably shower with tenderness and affection every chance he could get. From the corner of my eye I saw her again, the small girl with the off-white, bunny and pushed a gap between us clearing my throat. He was confused and almost looked hurt until I nodded my head to the door, to the girl, the small child who terrified me to the ends of the earth. He traced his fingers down my arm, across my skin which was cold to touch compared to the warmth of his hands, stopping at my hand and pulling me across the room to the large, wide door which was open on the left wall.

We were now in the hall. There was a staircase to the right which twisted round and up to his bedroom, a bathroom and another bedroom. I knew this hall well, I had walked through it many times now. It was the first step you took in the house after the double door entrance, onto a tiled grey white floor that I presumed led through to the kitchen at the back of the house. Sometimes the door was open and I could see through to the counters and island.  
He led me up the stairs, past the old paintings and a large panned window that looked out over the back fields. My fingers lightly brushed along the smooth bark of the deep, oak banister and the sounds of our feet tapping the wood seemed to echoe around the double height space. I ended up in his bedroom, he was agitated and closed the door harshly behind him, I sat down cautiously. 

His feet carried him heavily to where I sat and he stood above me, his face telling me I was in for it now. He knew why I pushed a distance between us, he knew why the thought of a small girl could cause fear to boil up inside a fully grown man. He put his hands on either side of my face to bring my eyes to meet his own. "I thought we sorted this" he pouted. I pulled him in close to me, between my two thighs and wrapped my arms around his taut body, breathing in his scent. There I could have cried, bawled into his stomach, staining his beige t-shirt with black eye makeup and clinging to his back. There I could have stayed with my head stuck to his body, allowing myself to accept this amazing man who happened to be mine. Really I did not treat him like I should. 

Was I really so afraid of who I was. It is sometimes as hard to be honest with ourselves as with the ones of those around us. His fingers brushed through my tangled hair. The clouds outside made the room dark, like the evening was closing in at 3 in the afternoon. I could hear the sound, like footsteps scrambling up stairs, like bees fizzy through their hive, knocking on the pane of glass that was above us.

"Sorry" I mumbled it, barely audible but I presume he heard me or maybe he just reached through the crevasse that was created between us so I could breath and saw the tears that were welling up into my eyes, threatening to show him my crumbling interior. 

I was suddenly knocked back onto the bed and pressed into it by the weight of his body, he was harsh, eager, ready to devour me like a hungry wolf. I remember all the worry that was shooting through my mind as he devoured my neck, running his fingers up the insides of my thighs before ripping off my clothes until I lay exposed, naked, opened. 

He sat above my naked body between my legs with a sly smile on his face, “You are the most beautiful man I have ever met", My cheeks burned scarlet. Before long I hand my hand on him and his on me, legs tangled into ball of soft white wool. We sat facing each other, rocking out bodies against each other, his mouth slightly open. 

I could see into his throat past his swollen lips, his saliva strung from top to bottom, a web I wanted to stick my fingers in, a chord stringing us together. Can you bring me over the edge again and again and again, can we throw ourselves against the rocks, swim in the sea of juices below, until the cliff has become apart of us, constantly falling, down, down, down, diving into the endless abyss of desire, lust, love. 

Can I stay like this forever, with your fingers wedged inside my deepest ocean, can you pour your waves onto me endlessly. If the world was ending I would say I wanted it to end here, no words needed be spoken, our eyes spoke louder than mouths ever could.


	2. Arrival

It was June now as well and the rain poured down just as heavy as it did that day. 

The train slowed to a stop, the countryside around me no longer running past the window as crowds gathered on the platform ready to board. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably as a young woman slipped into the booth beside me, her thigh brushing mine in an attempt to fit her bag in under her feet.

I had been on this train for far too long, it was nearing evening now and the air was getting clammy, everyone was breathing too much. The sky above was overcast, as though it knew more than I did about what would be at the end of this journey. If the birds gathering above knew, would they not tell me? would they not swoop down and fly alongside the carriage to inform me I was wasting my time, that of course he would not be sitting in the same house just waiting for me.

I caught my reflection in the condensation-stained window as I heard the engine start up again, the whine from the breaks startling the silence of the carriage. My eyes did me no good, merely two black holes that no longer held the excitement of life. They told the people I looked at of the sleep I had been lacking, red, puffy rims. 

My wife used to tell me that eyes were the windows to the soul. "and what do you see when you look into mine?" I would ask, "pain, daring, you look like you’re in pain". 

There was a child sitting on the red, metal bench of the platform. Her checker coat hugged her body tightly as she fought off the rain. Her hands were sitting neatly in her lap, holding the umbrella above her head. She must have been waiting for someone, or maybe for the next train, she was alone.   
She reminded me of Mi Cha when she was little. Her navy hat sitting on a bed of pure black hair would always float up her forehead a little too high when it was windy and she would complain her face got too cold. We often took long walks on the beach together in December. The cold sea would meet our toes and cause our feet to sink into the gravel beneath our soles. She always loved the seagulls, how they bobbed up and down on the waves, shrinking into the horizon. 

Her hand fit in mine so neatly, like a hand in a glove, a foot in a shoe. 

It was days like those that helped me forget him.

A few years back, when she was younger, maybe 5, I had been searching through some old boxes in the back of our attic. I crawled to the farthest corner I could reach on my hands and knees and dragged a small, oak chest with me back out into the light of the window. 

It wasn’t very large, though heavy, as it sat on my thighs and I searched though pictures upon pictures that had lay untouched, dust gathering at their corners reminding me of how long ago they were taken. It wasn’t until a particular one caught my eye that I was truly interested in my findings. It was a photograph taken in Seoul and in the very centre was me, as a young boy, and him.

On the back was written, well more like scrawled, 'The first moment we touched'. 

This picture of him and I, with our arms around each other and big cheesy grins on our faces, followed me around for the years to come. It was this picture I carried to work with me every day. It was this picture I saw every time I opened my wallet to pay for a new dress each year for Mi Cha. 

It made me smile. But not a happy smile, where one reminisces on a past life but instead a sad kind of smile, where I almost wish I could go back, sort our disagreement and just stay there. 

It was January 3rd 1998; my bags were sitting packed at the front door. Although no words were spoken my wife understood, it was as though she knew all along this day would come, almost more than I did. So, I received a hug and a warm hand to my cheek and without even having to tell her where I was heading, closed the front door behind me. 

And that’s what led me to sitting on this sticky, hot train travelling half-way across Korea to reach Goyang and eventually ending up in the drive way to his house. 

I trudged my way up the long driveway, I could feel the handle of my case cutting into my skin as I tightened my grip, knuckles turning white. I was sweating, my feet felt too heavy in my shoes and my hair was begging to stick to my forehead from all the rain.

The house stood as it did before, it looked no different to the pictures, or to how I remembered it and as I walked up through the garden the memories of him flooded my mind without warning. It was like traveling back in time, reaching through the cracks I had mistakenly created and piecing them back together.   
The two swings were still in the garden, hanging from the large blossom tree, the ones his mother made when we were little, the ones she used to push us on. 

Once I reached the door, I raised my hand to softly knock. I was shaking, my heart logged in my throat. The door opened to a man with silver-blonde hair who I thought looked familiar but couldn’t remember his name.

He welcomed me in the house and we drank black tea. I found out his name was Seonghwa which sounded familiar, I asked where he went to high school, he replied with the same one as I did, we found out we had shared biology class. 

We spoke of nothing, until my gut strangled me to ask the long-awaited question burning on my chest.  
"Do you know a man named Jung Wooyoung? I believe he used to live here", I sipped my tea in anticipation, trying to prevent my nerves from being plastered on my face. 

I had planned what to say time and time again, speaking to myself in the dead of night when no one else was awake. This was the face I had been longing to meet yet lacked the courage to ever contact. But I had prepared myself for the worst. I was married why couldn’t he be as well, I had a child, he could have many, and really, I knew deep down time would not be as it was before. 

I have changed, he will have as well. But what he said was not what I had ever pictured happening and was not something I had prepared myself for in any sort of way. 

"Oh Yeosang, I'm so sorry, he has been dead for 3 years".

His hand reached across the table to hold mine, it was cold, I felt numb.

He asked me to stay the night in one of their spare rooms. He told me we could speak in the morning when his husband came home and he would explain to me how he came to live in Wooyoung’s house, what had happened, how he had died. It was late and my mind couldn’t comprehend any more information.

He took my bag in his hand and led me up the winding staircase. The paintings were different, replaced by modern art that consisted of splashes of orange and red that made the hall feel warmer. But the staircase was still the same, same banister, same old, oak wood that the light reflected off and curved around to his room. 

The room had been refurnished but the layout remained the same, bed sitting proudly in the centre, window above me, bathroom to the right. The paint on the walls didn’t suit the old wooden frame of the window, but I didn’t want to say anything, the pale blue of the past matched better. 

He sat my case down beside the bed, “Hongjoong will be home soon and I can bring up dinner to you if you want?”, “No thank you, I think I’ll be alright. Just need some sleep”. One side of his lips turned up and his eyes blinked a few times. 

He didn’t say anything else; he didn’t need to, I knew he felt pity towards me, pity that no one had cared to contact me when it happened, pity that I looked as though tears would begin to flood from my eyes like a river at any given second. He didn’t need speak it out, he knew and I knew that everyone here had forgotten me, as though I had never existed in the first place. 

He nodded an okay and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in a room that was screaming at me to just go back, go home to your wife and Mi Cha, forget you ever came, forget you ever lived here. 

Forget him. 

But I couldn’t, not now. Even if the only reason I had come to this house was to see him and to reconcile whatever we used to have. Even though he wasn’t here, at least I could feel closer to the dead memories lying dormant in my mind.   
Because just sitting on his soft bed awakened ones I never knew I still had.


	3. Day One

The next morning, I woke still dressed in the clothes I had arrived in. The sun was shining down through the window from above, making the room glow brighter than it did the day before, but on looking out it the clouds hanging in the sky were still slightly grey.

I swung my legs out of bed and stood to stretch out the cramped way I had been sleeping, my packed case still sat at the bottom of the bed. I remembered then the news I had been told and it felt as through the clouds from outside snuck through my window and hung above my head to suck the oxygen out of my lungs.

I hadn’t cried last night, though tears were welcomed they never came, my mind was too foggy to make sense of anything. 

I miss it, that fog. Now everything is too clear, too heavy, too real. 

I heard a shout from downstairs and opened my door to the sound of two voices trying to, now quietly, argue back and forth. I should go down and see them. 

He laughed upon seeing me, "You do realise its 3pm”, oh no I hadn’t realised that. “we are heading to the beach if you would like to come!”, a large smile was plastered across his face and he nudged the small boy with red hair beside him to say hello. He bowed before reaching across to shake my hand “I’m Hongjoong”. 

His mouth was so wide, teeth showing in a single line as he smiled. His hair was bright, as though it had been just recently dyed, and matched his lips. 

“Yeosang”

I was handed a basket of food and pushed out the backdoor.

The journey was quiet, just the silent hum of music filling the awkward space between us as I noticed them throwing side glances at one another. They were having a conversation with their eyes, one I couldn’t quite understand, until Hongjoong spoke up and began asking where I was from, what I worked at, if I had a family. 

Everything was just as I remembered it. The gravely sand that stretched for miles, the sea was still crystal clear and the smell of the wind reaching my face washed over me like a wave. I walked out to the edge where the sea and sand met and slipped off my shoes and socks to dip my feet into the cooling water. 

It was so calm today; someone had blown away all the waves last night so this morning the water only lightly lapped onto the sand. The tide was in, the sea came up to say good morning to my toes.

When I looked up, he was there, standing out just a bit further than I could reach. The sky was blue, the clouds a hazy wash over the deep shade. He wore emerald shorts that sat on his hips and just reached his knees, his milky back exposed to the sun, his hands were in his pockets. 

The sea was cold, the water was so clear I could almost see his feet under the glass from here, it was like glass, it felt like I could walk out on top of it, above it and reach him without even getting wet, reach my hand out and actually touch him. 

The sky sat touching the sea, the horizon was slowly turning yellow with the rising ball of fire that emerged from behind the sharp line. God, he was perfect. I wanted to snake my hands around his waist, to feel his taut, warm stomach against the skin of my chilly arms. To smear my hands across his abs, for him to hold my hands there, my naked chest pressed into his muscular back.

I longed to slowly sneak up on him from behind, skin stuck to skin, and place my head on his shoulder, like I did when we were children, my cheek on the curve of his neck. 

And kiss all the way across his shoulders and hear him say my name through a closed, sweet smile, breathe in his scent and savour it for as long as I could. I wanted to hold him, like I used to, like he used to hold me, like I was his, like he was mine. Like neither of us needed anything more than our bodies pressed together, two pieces of a jigsaw that couldn't be separated because they fitted together, almost too perfectly, slotting into one another with such ease. 

I watched him, he just stood, moving one foot back and forth through the water, watching the ripples it made. He was alone. His damp brown hair pushed back, loose strands framing his face, it was shining, copper stands making their appearance, turning into almost blonde from the summer's sun. 

I looked down to dip my toe in, looked back up, he was gone. He was never here, he never made it here, it isn't then, it's now.

If I dived into the water would he be there with his face blown up like a puffer fish, trying to make me laugh, making me laugh. If I turned around to the hill would he be standing, beside his tree, would his hand be resting on the smooth, pale bark, would he wave. If I lay on the sand and looked up into the sky would I feel his hand, slowly crawling over my body, his two fingers marching like soldiers across my torso, along my ribs and up to my chest.

I remember that day, like it was today, only it’s not.

Do you remember it? maybe it’s still that same day wherever you are, maybe we are still there, on this beach, I hope so. 

That day, I walked through the water to you, you turned to look at me saying something along the lines of, “thought you'd never get in”, reached out and grabbed my hand when I got close enough and pulled me to stand next to you. My feet sank into the sea bed below, feeling tiny pebbles gently press into my souls. 

We always swam in the mornings, when no-one else was around, maybe it wouldn't even be called morning, about dawn. We didn't want to be seen, by others, by families, I didn't want to be seen, with him holding me like I was his. I didn't want to be seen with my hand locked with his, with our foreheads leaning against one another, with my legs clinging to his middle and our faces so close our breathe mixed into one hot sigh. 

Shame. 

He swung our hands like we were two little boys again, who were excited to go on a walk in the woods or like I was his child he wished to make happy, he wished to please me. He always wanted to see me smiling. 

“Are you cold?”, he said. “a little”.

A hug is in store I thought, the kind of one where he rubbed my arms up and down to get rid of the goose bumps and then squeeze me like a was a melon about to pop and firmly pressed his lips against mine, which always made me warm. I was wrong. 

Instead, he dropped my hand and splashed me, running away and giggling, knowing what he had started. I ran after him, the water splashing up onto my back making me shiver, the little droplets sat on the goose bumps on my skin. 

I chased him until I soaked him then turned, knowing he would chase me. His laugh rose up into the air, like a squeal, sweet music from above, a song I could listen to over and over and never tire from, a record I would stick in and never replace. 

He caught me, wrapped his arms around my middle, picked me up and swung me around. God, my stomach hurt from laughing and squeezing my abdomen didn't help. 

He placed me down softly and turned my body in his arms. I was lucky. What had I done to deserve such a beautiful soul to love and be loved by. My eyes landed on his damp collarbone, travelling up to his neck, chin, smooth, plump lips and up further to his eyes pouring with desire. I met deep pools, dark caves, caverns that held secrets I wanted to unlock. 

To crawl into his eyes, down into the dark, into the back of a wet cave where I could sit with a angel and he would tell me the secrets of the universe. The brown surrounded slowly circling inwards, a whirlpool swimming round and round leading to a dark core. 

If eyes be the window to the soul, let me stare into yours forever, let me read every speckle and vein like a book, a manuscript of the utmost importance. For if all I had to go on were your eyes, if I saw only them, still I would know for definite it was you, because I had memorized every part of them.

Don't dare look away, your soul has been opened to me and mine to yours, intimacy on the highest level, honesty, opened up till your core spills blood and fills the blue sea around us red. That’s what I wanted to say.

I stood on my toes, feeling them sinking into the soft, soaked sand below and touched our foreheads, breathing him in deeply. 

A smile sat on his face. 

A warm hand on my shoulder pulled me out of my thoughts and I whipped round to be met with the small red head. “Hwa and I are going to start eating now, you came come whenever you’re ready!” he patted my shoulder slightly, offered me a smile and turned with a nod, running back up the beach. 

I was back in reality. The sky above us was still grey, the sand still cold and I still felt so very, very alone.


	4. If there be stones

Later, I walked along the beach with Seonghwa and Hongjoong explaining to me how they knew Wooyoung. Seonghwa had been friends with him as well, they had spent years together working in the same firm and so became very close nearing his last few years. Hongjoong however, had only met him once or twice on a special occasion like Christmas or attending a wedding when Seonghwa had been allowed bring a guest. This lead me to believe they were merely work friends. 

It was odd to hear them speaking about him, to hear his name roll off their tongue like any other word would. After leaving him I rarely spoke of him again, apart from to my wife, who tried to council me into believing that it was not love I had felt for him and instead that I was just alone. His name only left my mouth one or two times and when it did, it was always hard to speak. 

“He told me about you though, often”. My lungs stopped letting air into my body, my face drained of all its blood. “And ....what did he say?” “That you were good friends, grew up together, he always spoke about how you taught him everything he knows, how you taught him what love and happiness really was. I always wanted to meet you, he placed you so high up it sounded like you were an angel from heaven!”. 

Seonghwa let out a light laugh and swung his and Hongjoong’s intertwined fingers. 

I didn’t know what to say, what I could say. After the hate that I had felt for him all those years finally faded all that was left was guilt, as though it was my fault all along. I could hardly even remember what I had said that day I decided to leave. But his face was what was glued into my brain, printed across my forehead and carved into my chest. 

I lay down in bed, after that night, after that interaction that seemed to take my energy from my very core, that incident that caused me to believe all of my life would mount to nothing if he were not by my side. And thought about the future, about the next few days, months, years. Where would I be without him. He had walked with me through everything, I would have followed him to the ends of the earth and back. Yet there I was laying in bed, alone, planning to pick up my bags and run 200miles south, not just because of my job offer, but because the weight of someone else sleeping in his bed made me need to escape. 

I used to ask the universe if there was a way my future self could come and tell my present self, that the countless things I was facing, the endless, sleepless nights, would become dust in the bigger picture of it all? Could he come now and tell me, that looking behind me was not how I should live, that I should live in every moment, in the present. For even if my present reality was partly what was happening in my mind and what was truly happening in the everyday, at least I lived for the now.

I hoped, prayed, begged myself to be who my future self would ask of me. I had to carry on, to move on, to continue. But the only thing that echoed endlessly around my hollow head every night was, “If I can count the number of years I have, and will, live on this earth on my fingers, let me make each one count, for the one before may never be like the next and the next never like the one after and he may only be here, in the now.” And that caused me to be so wrapped up in him I thought I would never escape. 

“I have some pictures of him at home, if you want to have a look when we go back?” “Sure”.

I decided to change the subject for the walk back to the car, since it seemed neither of them wanted to talk about how he died and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to ask. 

“So, how did you two meet?” , I tried to sound interested, enthusiastic, I hope it worked. The red head had a little skip in his step and smiled up at the taller “You can say it”. Even though he was shorter I could tell he was the more confident of the two. Seonghwa had this wonderful caring aura about him, a sweet smile, like someone who would pour their love out on a plate and ask you to eat it in front of him. 

Hongjoong spoke up, “Well I worked in a cafe just down the road from his college and he would visit it every morning and sit right at the counter and have coffee. So, we started talking and eventually I found out he was a business student and was doing work experience in the same firm my dad worked in".

As he spoke his eyes were alight, a glint in them which sparkled and told me of the love they shared for each other. It was beautiful to see, to see them so open about their relationship, so eager to share it with whoever cared to ask. And there I was jumping on their train, listening to endless stories pouring from their smiling mouths about how they got married, where, who was there, what their first song was, etc. 

On the drive home we passed a lane with tall trees standing on either side. I knew that lane, every stone on it. We used to walk home from high school that way. It looked over the entire city. His house was quite far out, up a winding hill that led to a small cluster of similarly large houses. But we always walked home when we were going to his house, even in the sweltering heat.

One specifically hot day we both had our bags off our shoulders as we dragged our feet up that hill. He always talked about the girl he sat next to in class, or the one that admired him at lunch, or the one that asked to borrow his homework and ended up getting his number as well. But that day he was so quiet I thought he had lost his voice, the only sound I could hear was his heavy, unsteady breathing and our feet scrapping across the pavement every now and then. 

I remember wishing that walk would last forever, that we would travel round the entire world just speaking. I could get to know him, forever. Every inch of him, every little thought, every way he said each individual word so uniquely as no-one else on the earth did. Could we have possibly stepped outside of time, into eternity, where the path would never end. Along a dirt track with bare feet, the sand being stirred behind us as our souls left the earth behind. The walk could continue on, just be an endless journey, leading to nowhere but going anywhere and everywhere in between. Grass on either side of us, looking down on the earth, outside, in our own space, our own time zone. And there we would stay, walking and talking, his fingers interlocked with mine, becoming one. 

He pulled me under a tree and plonked himself down on the grass there, the wind lightly brushing his hair out his face where tiny strands sat drenched in liquid around the edges of his forehead. He looked up at me and smiled, motioning me to sit next to him. His arm sat, clung, around my waist, as if to say this is ours, mine and yours, our spot, our secret and we can stay if you like, like this, up here, for a while. 

The shade gave us relief from the blistering sun and I thanked God I put my shorts on today because even in the shade my thighs still stuck together and my underarms felt slightly damp. But he didn't mind.

And I didn't mind that I could smell his natural scent of sweat mixed with summer fruits and feel the warmth from his chest on my back as I leant against him to watch the clouds pass. He held me like that, for a while, it could have been minutes or hours, I can't remember. 

Until he said “who was your first kiss”. 

My mind became an ocean of thoughts I was drowning in, why the fuck would he ever ask such a- “you’ve never kissed anyone?” “wha- no of course I have, yeah I have...before....once or twice”. I tried hiding myself further into his chest so he wouldn’t see my already red face burning a shade darker. 

No, I had never kissed anyone. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to or because I was too shy, but instead because the only person I had ever wanted to kiss was cradling me in his arms at that very moment yet seemed to have no idea he was also clinging to my heart. “There’s no need to be embarrassed Sangie” he squeezed me tighter, I thought I would melt. 

This was when we first started high school, we were probably around 16, him a few months older than me. It was at that point I had told him I thought I liked guys, with my quiet almost incoherent whisper of a voice in the toilet one afternoon when he found me crying.  
He was delighted for me. He shouted it across all the stalls and let loose his high-pitched squeal of a laugh before giving me a huge hug. And I never lived it down after that. Every boy I was caught looking at he would give me a nudge and raise his eyebrows so high I thought they would fall off his forehead, then flutter his eyelashes. It made me more comfortable with who I was, or at least made it not as much of a shameful thing to live with. 

“Do you think it’s different from kissing a girl?” “what?” “kissing a boy”. I cleared my throat painfully loud. 

The next move was a mistake, or maybe it wasn’t, as it led to all the memories created after that. All the nights sneaking in through his bedroom window and sleeping in his warm bed. All the stolen kisses under the stairs at the track, when he finished his training and would run over to walk me home. The long talks, drives, parties, sex. Maybe this moment was what started it all. 

But if I had stopped it, maybe if I hadn’t turned around at that exact moment, I wouldn’t be here now, sitting in the back of a car wishing I had just one more moment with him. 

I turned in his arms and looked straight into his eyes with a confused expression on my face. “why do you want to know”, it came out more whispered than I had anticipated. 

He inched his face slightly closer to mine, I could feel him let out a warm breath of air he must have been holding. His eyes flicked down to my lips and back up to my eyes as his mouth slightly parted, his tongue darting out to wet his glossy lips. 

And then it happened. My body melted into his mouth, his warm lips pressed against mine firmly for a second and he pulled back, searching my eyes as if asking, was this allowed? Should I have done that? But before I could say anything else he was back on my mouth devouring it, licking across my lips and dipping his tongue into my warmth. I had never kissed anyone before, but I knew right there I never wanted to kiss anyone other than him for as long as I lived. 

We turned into the driveway, some stones bouncing up and hitting the back of the car as we tumbled down towards the house. There was a small silver car sitting outside the house now, parked right in front of the door. From what I could see a tiny head poked out and on it sat a bundle of blue hair. 

“Yunho is home!” Hongjoong perked up, big bright smile on his face, looking back at me as if I should have any clue in the world who Yunho was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hopefully you are following along okay ❤️
> 
> Comments and kudos always welcomed!


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